QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [07-01-01]

[Jessica Boucher]

...unlike the rather frivolous post I already made.

What I would really like (other than my normal "we need more females in strong roles" RCU-speech) to see is more colleges involved, so I am agreeing with Pamela.

Not only do more colleges need to be involved and we need to find a way to keep these FIRST alum around even though they may not be able to start a team right away.

Plus, we need more than just engineering schools involved. This is not saying anything against the engineering schools, because the majority of people really smitten with FIRST will more than likely go on to an engineering/technical type of career. But there are so many other roles on FIRST teams, and I know you all know that, but I think its time they were represented within FIRST as well. Business schools, art/animation schools, accounting majors, medical-related programs, travel agency (ok, so thats a stretch, but its early for me this morning).

I went to my interview with Babson all prepared to explain FIRST to the point and from a business (fundraising, teamwork, and presentation) aspect. The woman interviewing me surprised me, though...this was actually her 5th week on the job at Babson and before that she was working in the WPI admissions office, with a Dean of Admissions that was completely enamored with their team and told everyone in the office about it. She seemed shocked that I could spit right back to her their team number, the school they work with, and people I knew on the team.

In a perfect world, we shouldnt have to explain FIRST to any college. But I think if we opened our definition of what colleges you can go to by being in FIRST you'd attract more people and more colleges.